Wizard! Book 1- Lila’s viewpoint part 4

A year passed. It was time for the test again. Lila breezed through the practical section. As for the written section… It started off with a few questions that Lila didn’t know. However, she remembered William’s advice. She didn’t have to answer all of the questions. The most important thing was that she answer everything she knew, and not get intimidated by the questions that she couldn’t. Thanks to William’s continuous dumping of more information and pressing her harder and harder on her reading… she actually could answer most of them. It was just the first few, and a few more scattered questions that were a problem. Just learning to read wouldn’t have been enough, but William had actually managed to give her a pretty good overview of what would likely be on the test. There were even a few tricky questions that she thought she answered pretty well.

The results came in. Lila’s score was the best, much better than Geoff’s. She smiled at that. She was also much better than William. However, William’s score terrified her. He was a bit younger than her… yet he managed to pass. Sure, passing at a younger age than her was rather impressive, but just barely passing would have been just alright. If it had been anyone other than William at least.

At first, she had been jealous of William’s money, his learning, and all the advantages he had. Then, she learned that he couldn’t do magic. At all. Yet, at the same time, he managed to pass the test to enter the wizard’s school. That meant he performed absolutely perfectly on everything. Except what William might have jokingly referred to as the ‘slight difficulty’ of not actually being able to do magic. Lila knew some of the questions on the test weren’t meant to be answered completely. At least, not by children. Those questions were meant for the older people, adults who had come from other places to try to enter the school. Lila had the best test results this time… but William had been the only one with truly perfect results. He didn’t seem like a seven year old kid at all. Except when he was playing tag.

—–

Time passed. Lila would go to William with any questions she had, even though she was now going to a school with many knowledgeable professors. It had become clear that William wasn’t all knowing or perfect… but he was still the best at explaining everything she wanted in a way she could understand. She sometimes felt stupid… but then she just had to compare herself to anybody but William, and she felt better. Besides, he never called her stupid. He always just pointed out that people learned differently.

—–

Lila helped with various things around the school. Cleaning, carrying things, whatever. After all, she needed money to pay for her tuition. Her parents certainly couldn’t afford it. Ironically, doing such work here paid quite well. Mostly because people were too lazy to do things themselves. After a few years of that, Lila also helped with more wizardly things, such as inscribing runes, or just powering them. Fortunately, she could be somewhat picky about who she worked for.

—–

William was crazy. He actually fought in the tournament… without magic. Lila thought he was crazy… but she absolutely couldn’t afford to underestimate him. Especially not after he managed to get that strange, crystal staff. She learned that nobody in… ever, really, had managed to touch the staff without it beating them up. William was weird.

—–

Eventually, Lila found her true calling. She could fight monsters… magical beasts, whatever. It was great. She earned a lot of money… and she was good at it. While she appreciated studying somewhat, there was only so much she could stand being cooped up inside. Besides, it was also helping people. This was great.

—–

William was worried. He never worried about anything. Not really. He seemed to completely ignore the events going on in the world around him, unless he found them interesting. However, he had become unusually serious. She asked about it, and he told her about the Demon King, and some things he’d learned. He was extremely interested in soul magic. She hadn’t seen him so focused on anything before… and she knew it was important. Not just because he said it was, but when he said something was important, Lila knew it was.

—–

Lila thought she was crazy. What was she doing. She was traveling toward the Demon Lands. On purpose. Nobody was paying her to fight all the magical beasts she had encountered on the way. However, this was important. This wasn’t a job. This was more important than money, or her life, or even the lives of her parents. It might even be more important than the lives of everyone in the city of Canta… and possibly even more than the entire country. So, she was going. She was going to the only place that definitely knew some of the things William needed. She wasn’t sure how she would discover what she needed to know, but she knew she had to try. William would likely have done the same… if he thought he could succeed.